Lords of the North s-3

by Bernard Cornwell

  Ragnar had checked his horse. His men were readying for a fight. They were pushing their arms into shield loops, loosening swords in scabbards, and waiting for Ragnar’s orders. I gazed into the valley. The fort was a hopeless refuge. Its walls had long eroded into the ditch and there was no palisade, so that a man could stroll over the ramparts without even breaking stride. The sixty horsemen, if they had wished, could have ridden into the village, but they preferred to ride close to the old wall and shout insults. Guthred’s men watched from the fort’s edge. More men were clustered about the church. They had seen us on the hill and must have thought we were new enemies, for they were hurrying toward the remnants of the southern rampart. I stared at the village. Was Gisela there? I remembered the flick of her head and how her eyes had been shadowed by her black hair, and I unconsciously spurred my horse a few paces forward. I had spent over two years of hell at Sverri’s oar, but this was the moment I had dreamed of through all that time, and so I did not wait for Ragnar. I touched spurs to my horse again and rode alone into the valley of the Swale.

  Beocca, of course, followed me, squawking that as Alfred’s ambassador he must lead the way into Guthred’s presence, but I ignored him and, halfway down the hill he tumbled from his horse. He gave a despairing cry and I left him limping in the grass as he tried to retrieve his mare.

  The late autumn sun was bright on the land that was still wet from rain. I carried a shield with a polished boss, I was in mail and helmet, my arm rings shone, I glittered like a lord of war. I twisted in my saddle to see that Ragnar had started down the hill, but he was slanting eastward, plainly intent on cutting off the retreat of Kjartan’s men, whose best escape would lie in the eastern river meadows.

  I reached the hill’s foot and spurred across the flat river plain to join the Roman road. I passed a Christian cemetery, the ground lumpy and scattered with small wooden crosses looking toward the one larger cross which would show the resurrected dead the direction of Jerusalem on the day the Christians believed their corpses would rise from the earth. The road led straight past the graves to the fort’s southern entrance, where a crowd of Guthred’s men watched me. Kjartan’s men spurred to intercept me, barring the road, but they showed no apprehension. Why should they? I appeared to be a Dane, I was one man and they were many, and my sword was still in its scabbard. “Which of you is Rolf?” I shouted as I drew near them.

  “I am,” a black-bearded man urged his horse toward me. “Who are you?”

  “Your death, Rolf,” I said, and I drew Serpent-Breath and touched my heels to the stallion’s flanks and he went into the full gallop and Rolf was still drawing his sword when I pounded past him and swung Serpent-Breath and the blade sliced through his neck so that his head and helmet flew back, bounced on the road and rolled under my horse’s hooves. I was laughing because the battle-joy had come. Three men were ahead of me and none had yet drawn a sword. They just stared at me, aghast, and at Rolf’s headless trunk that swayed in the saddle. I charged the center man, letting my horse barge into his and striking him hard with Serpent-Breath, and then I was through Kjartan’s horsemen and the fort was in front of me.

  Fifty or sixty men were standing at the fort’s entrance. Only a handful were mounted, but nearly all had swords or spears. And I could see Guthred there, his fair curly hair bright in the sun, and next to him was Gisela. I had tried so often to summon her face in those long months at Sverri’s oar, and I had always failed, yet suddenly the wide mouth and the defiant eyes seemed so familiar. She was dressed in a white linen robe, belted at her waist with a silver chain, and she had a linen bonnet on her hair which, because she was married, was bound into a knot. She was holding her brother’s arm, and Guthred was just staring at the strange events unfolding outside his refuge.

  Two of Kjartan’s men had followed me while the rest were milling around, torn between the shock of Rolf’s death and the sudden appearance of Ragnar’s war-band. I turned on the two men following me, wrenching the stallion about so sharply that his hooves scrabbled in the wet mud, but my sudden turn drove my pursuers back. I spurred after them. One was too fast, the second was on a lumbering horse and he heard my hoofbeats and swung his sword back in a desperate attempt to drive me off. I took the blade on my shield, then lunged Serpent-Breath into the man’s spine so that his back arched and he screamed. I tugged Serpent-Breath free and back-swung her into the man’s face. He fell from the saddle and I rode around him, sword red, and took off my helmet as I spurred again toward the fort.

  I was showing off. Of course I was showing off. One man against sixty? But Gisela was watching. In truth I was in no real danger. The sixty men had not been ready for a fight, and if they pursued me now I could take refuge with Guthred’s men. But Kjartan’s men were not pursuing. They were too nervous of Ragnar’s approach and so I ignored them, riding close to Guthred and his men instead.

  “Have you forgotten how to fight?” I shouted at them. I ignored Guthred. I even ignored Gisela, though I had taken off my helmet so she would recognize me. I knew she was watching me. I could sense those dark eyes and sense her astonishment and I hoped it was a joyful astonishment. “They’ve all got to die!” I shouted, pointing my sword at Kjartan’s men. “Every last one of the bastards has to die, so go out and kill them!”

  Ragnar struck then and there was the hammer of shield on shield, the clangor of swords and the scream of men and horses. Kjartan’s men were scattering and some, despairing of making an escape eastward, were galloping to the west. I looked at the men in the gateway, “Rypere! Clapa! I want those men stopped!”

  Clapa and Rypere were staring at me as though I were a ghost, which I suppose I was in a way. I was glad Clapa was still with Guthred, for Clapa was a Dane and that suggested Guthred could still command some Danish allegiance. “Clapa! You earsling!” I yelled. “Stop dawdling like a boiled egg. Get on a horse and fight!”

  “Yes, lord!”

  I rode closer still until I was staring down at Guthred. There was a fight going on behind me and Guthred’s men, stirred from their torpor, were hurrying to join the slaughter, but Guthred had no eyes for the battle. He just stared up at me. There were priests behind him and Gisela was beside him, but I looked only into Guthred’s eyes and saw the fear there. “Remember me?” I asked coldly.

  He had no words.

  “You would do well,” I said, “to set a kingly example and kill a few men right now. You have a horse?”

  He nodded and still could not speak.

  “Then get on your horse,” I said curtly, “and fight.”

  Guthred nodded and took one backward pace, but though his servant led a horse forward Guthred did not mount. I looked at Gisela then and she looked back and I thought her eyes could light a fire. I wanted to speak, but it was my turn to have no words. A priest plucked at her shoulder as if summoning her away from the fighting, but I twitched Serpent-Breath’s bloody blade toward the man and he went very still. I looked back at Gisela and it seemed as if I had no breath, as if the world stood still. A gust of wind lifted a wisp of black hair showing beneath her bonnet. She brushed it away, then smiled. “Uhtred,” she said, as though saying the name for the very first time.

  “Gisela,” I managed to speak.

  “I knew you’d come back,” she said.

  “I thought you were going to fight,” I snarled at Guthred and he ran off like a whipped dog.

  “Do you have a horse?” I asked Gisela.

  “No.”

  “You!” I shouted at a boy gawping at me. “Fetch me that horse!” I pointed to the stallion of the man I had injured in the face. That man was now dead, killed by Guthred’s men as they joined the fight.

  The boy brought me the stallion and Gisela scrambled into its saddle, hoisting her skirts inelegantly around her thighs. She pushed her muddy shoes into the stirrups then held out a hand to touch my cheek. “You’re thinner,” she said.

  “So are you.”

  “I have not been happy,” she said,
“since the moment you left.” She kept her hand on my cheek for a heartbeat, then impulsively took it away and tore off the linen bonnet and unpinned her black hair so that it fell around her shoulders like the hair of an unwed girl. “I’m not married,” she said, “not properly married.”

  “Not yet,” I said, and my heart was so full of joy. I could not take my eyes from her. I was with her again and the months of slavery dropped away as though they had never happened.

  “Have you killed enough men yet?” she asked mischievously.

  “No.”

  So we rode toward the slaughter.

  You cannot kill everyone in an enemy army. Or rarely. Whenever the poets sing a tale of battle they always insist that no enemy escapes unless the poet himself happens to be part of the fight when he alone escapes. It is strange that. Poets always live while everyone else dies, but what do poets know? I have never seen a poet in a shield wall. Yet, outside Cetreht, we must have killed over fifty of Kjartan’s men, and then everything became chaotic because Guthred’s men could not tell the difference between Kjartan’s followers and Ragnar’s Danes, and so some of the enemy escaped as we pulled warriors apart. Finan, attacked by two of Guthred’s household troops, had killed both of them and, when I found him, he was about to attack a third. “He’s on our side,” I shouted to Finan.

  “He looks like a rat,” Finan snarled.

  “His name,” I said, “is Sihtric, and he once swore me an oath of loyalty.”

  “Still looks like a rat, he does.”

  “Are you on our side?” I called to Sihtric, “or did you rejoin your father’s troops?”

  “Lord, lord!” Sihtric came running to me and fell to his knees in the trampled mud beside my horse. “I’m still your man, lord.”

  “You didn’t take an oath to Guthred?”

  “He never asked me, lord.”

  “But you served him? You didn’t run back to Dunholm?”

  “No, lord! I stayed with the king.”

  “He did,” Gisela confirmed.

  I gave Serpent-Breath to Gisela, then reached down and took Sihtric’s hand. “So you’re still my man?”

  “Of course, lord.” He was clutching my hand, gazing at me with disbelief.

  “You’re not much use, are you,” I said, “if you can’t beat a skinny Irishman like him?”

  “He’s quick, lord,” Sihtric said.

  “So teach him your tricks,” I told Finan, then I patted Sihtric’s cheek. “It’s good to see you, Sihtric.”

  Ragnar had two prisoners and Sihtric recognized the taller of the two. “His name is Hogga,” he told me.

  “He’s a dead Hogga now,” I said. I knew Ragnar would not let any of Kjartan’s men survive while Kjartan himself lived. This was the bloodfeud. This was hatred. This was the start of Ragnar’s revenge for his father’s death, but for the moment Hogga and his shorter companion evidently believed they would live. They were talking avidly, describing how Kjartan had close to two hundred men in Dunholm. They said Kjartan had sent a large war-band to support Ivarr, while the rest of his men had followed Rolf to this bloody field by Cetreht.

  “Why didn’t Kjartan bring all his men here?” Ragnar wanted to know.

  “He won’t leave Dunholm, lord, in case Ælfric of Bebbanburg attacks when he’s gone.”

  “Has Ælfric threatened to do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, lord,” Hogga said.

  It would be unlike my uncle to risk an attack on Dunholm, though perhaps he would lead men to rescue Guthred if he knew where Guthred was. My uncle wanted the saint’s corpse and he wanted Gisela, but my guess was that he would risk little to get those two things. He would certainly not risk Bebbanburg itself, any more than Kjartan would risk Dunholm.

  “And Thyra Ragnarsdottir?” Ragnar resumed his questioning. “Does she live?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “Does she live happily?” Ragnar asked harshly.

  They hesitated, then Hogga grimaced. “She is mad, lord.” He spoke in a low voice. “She is quite mad.”

  Ragnar stared at the two men. They became uncomfortable under his gaze, but then Ragnar looked up at the sky where a buzzard floated down from the western hills. “Tell me,” he said, and his voice was suddenly low, almost easy, “how long have you served Kjartan?”

  “Eight years, lord,” Hogga said.

  “Seven years, lord,” the other man said.

  “So you both served him,” Ragnar said, still speaking softly, “before he fortified Dunholm?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “And you both served him,” Ragnar went on, his voice harsh now, “when he took men to Synningthwait and burned my father’s hall. When he took my sister as his son’s whore. When he killed my mother and my father.”

  Neither man answered. The shorter of the two was shaking. Hogga looked around as if to find a way to escape, but he was surrounded by mounted sword-Danes, then he flinched as Ragnar drew Heart-Breaker.

  “No, lord,” Hogga said.

  “Yes,” Ragnar said and his face twisted with anger as he chopped down. He had to dismount to finish the job. He killed both men, and he hacked at their fallen bodies in fury. I watched, then turned to see Gisela’s face. It showed nothing, then she became conscious of my gaze and turned toward me with a small look of triumph as if she knew I had half expected her to be horrified by the sight of men being disembowelled. “They deserved it?” she asked.

  “They deserved it,” I said.

  “Good.”

  Her brother, I noted, had not watched. He was nervous of me, for which I did not blame him, and doubtless terrified of Ragnar who was bloodied like a butcher, and so Guthred had gone back to the village, leaving us with the dead. Father Beocca had managed to find some of Guthred’s priests and, after talking with them, he limped to us. “It is agreed,” he said, “that we shall present ourselves to the king in the church.” He suddenly became aware of the two severed heads and the sword-slashed bodies. “Dear God, who did that?”

  “Ragnar.”

  Beocca made the sign of the cross. “The church,” he said, “we’re to meet in the church. Do try to wipe that blood off your mail, Uhtred. We’re an embassy!”

  I turned to see a handful of fugitives crossing the hilltops to the west. They would doubtless cross the river higher up and join the horsemen on the far bank, and those horsemen would be wary now. They would send word to Dunholm that enemies had come, and Kjartan would hear of the eagle-wing banner and know that Ragnar was returned from Wessex.

  And perhaps, on his high crag, behind his high walls, he would be frightened.

  I rode to the church, taking Gisela with me. Beocca hurried after on foot, but he was slow. “Wait for me!” he shouted, “wait for me!”

  I did not wait. Instead I spurred the stallion faster and left Beocca far behind.

  It was dark in the church. The only illumination came from a small window above the door and from some feeble rushlights burning on the altar that was a trestle table covered by a black cloth. Saint Cuthbert’s coffin, together with the other two chests of relics, stood in front of the altar where Guthred sat on a milking stool flanked by two men and a woman. The Abbot Eadred was one of the men and Father Hrothweard was the other. The woman was young, had a plumply pretty face, and a pregnant belly. I learned later she was Osburh, Guthred’s Saxon queen. She glanced from me to her husband, evidently expecting Guthred to speak, but he was silent. A score of warriors stood on the left side of the church and a larger number of priests and monks on the right. They had been arguing, but all went quiet when I entered.

  Gisela held my left arm. Together we walked down the church until we faced Guthred, who seemed incapable of looking at me or speaking to me. He opened his mouth once, but no words came, and he looked past me as if hoping that someone less baleful would come through the church door. “I’m going to marry your sister,” I told him.

  He opened his mouth and closed it again.

  A m
onk moved as if to protest my words and was pulled back by a companion and I saw that the gods had been especially good to me that day, for the pair were Jænberht and Ida, the monks who had negotiated my slavery. Then, from the other side of the church, a man did protest. “The Lady Gisela,” he said, “is already married.”

  I saw that the speaker was an older man, gray-haired and stout. He was dressed in a short brown tunic with a silver chain about his neck and he jerked his head up belligerently as I walked toward him. “You’re Aidan,” I said. It had been fourteen years since I had been in Bebbanburg, but I recognized Aidan. He had been one of my father’s doorkeepers, charged with keeping unwanted folk out of the great hall, but the silver chain made it clear that he had risen in rank since then. I flicked the chain with my hand. “What are you now, Aidan?” I demanded.

  “Steward to the Lord of Bebbanburg,” he said gruffly. He did not recognize me. How could he? I had been nine years old when he last saw me.

  “So that makes you my steward,” I said.

  “Your steward?” he asked, then he realized who I was and he stepped back to join two young warriors. That step was involuntary, though Aidan was no coward. He had been a good soldier in his day, but meeting me had shocked him. He recovered though, and faced me defiantly. “The Lady Gisela,” he said, “is married.”

  “Are you married?” I asked Gisela.

  “No,” she said.

  “She’s not married,” I told Aidan.

  Guthred cleared his throat as if to speak, but then fell silent as Ragnar and his men filed into the church.

  “The lady is married,” a voice called from among the priests and monks. I turned to see that it was Brother Jænberht who had spoken. “She is married to the Lord Ælfric,” Jænberht insisted.